Some Time Never

1948

1948

In 1948 Roald Dahl’s first novel, Some Time Never: A Fable for Supermen – based on his Gremlin stories – is published. Aimed at an adult audience, it is notable for being perhaps the first fictional account of nuclear war to be published.

The story is very dark. In Donald Sturrock's biography Storyteller: The Life of Roald Dahl, Roald's daughter Ophelia is quoted as saying: "He was always very unconflicted about the fact that he felt human beings were capable of really monstrous things...And I think in writing Some Time Never he was writing about the capacity that we as humans have to destroy ourselves. I think he was trying to say something about what he'd seen, about the futility of war."

Writing Some Time Never was an exhausting process for Roald, and shortly after he submitted it for publication in 1946 he was admitted to the Military Hospital for Head Injuries in Oxfordshire.

During 1948, Roald also sees some of his short stories accepted by the BBC and The New Yorker. He divides his time between New York and Buckinghamshire, England.